It isn't unusual for Mihawk's student to keep odd hours, he seems to structure a lot of his day around calling his loved ones, something that Mihawk doesn't do but can respect. Zoro is a hard worker and he has talent but he rarely seems to use it to its fullest extent. Before he agreed to take Zoro on he had seen photos of Zoro's work, he had been sent swords that Zoro had made, his designs on paper. All of those and a recommendation from his last teacher were what made him take Zoro on. His talent and skill frustratingly seem to appear and disappear. Though his protégée is learning from the things that Mihawk is teaching him and he performs well at the tasks set Zoro still doesn't seem to be able to bring it all together reliably enough. All he can do is teach him more lessons and push him harder.

Even so Zoro was in the workshop for six hours straight yesterday, still working when Mihawk went to bed and now he is in there again. He lingers at the door and quietly watches. The glow from the furnace and the smell of straw ash light and scent the room and he can see the figure of Zoro hammering on steel, his movements fluid and strong.

"You know that he's not stopped all night, right?" Perona says from behind him. Mihawk doesn't jump, he knows Perona enough by now not to.

He hums in curiosity, that must be at least fourteen straight hours. His interest is throughly piqued now.

"My room is almost right above this stupid workshop. I had to go sleep in his room to escape the noise, not that he was using it. He's not slept at all." She complains.

He ignores her and makes his way into the workshop. He skirts around the equipment stations and goes to Zoro's desk. There are plans and blueprints, some of them old and some new. They look to be updated and improved versions of his older work. He can respect the drive to improve upon older work, but these are the blueprints that Zoro had sent to him as part of his portfolio to study with him. It's some of his best work, so why he would choose now of all times to repeat it is strange. Perhaps he's trying to recreate that feeling of skilled work so that he can apply it to new projects.

He makes his way to the grinding wheel and peers at the knife on the side there. The shape of it is very impressive and the thinness and sturdiness of the blade are excellent. He reaches out to turn it in the light, to get a better look at the edge but Zoro's voice stops him.

"Don't touch that!" Zoro barks out and Mihawk finds himself somewhat surprised, he's never had Zoro snap at him before. The young man has never got more than frustrated at his situation, but even then that's never been at Mihawk himself. Curious.

"It's good work." He says, aware that it's the first real compliment that he's paid his young apprentice. He knows that if he doles out praise too easily then there is a possibility that Zoro could stop striving so hard. He doesn't know how likely that is with Zoro's personality but he's not taking the risk. Surprisingly Zoro barely reacts to the praise.

"It has to be better than good, it needs to be better than anything else I've ever done. He needs it." Zoro says fiercely and slams his hammer down again.

"He?" Mihawk asks with a raise of his eyebrow.

"Sanji." Zoro responds distractedly and turns the knife over, staring at in the glow of the forge. He pauses before hammering a few more times, lighter this time, just perfecting a detail. With whatever imperfection that he'd seen gone he puts it in the straw ash to cool it slowly. Zoro straightens up and blinks wearily at him.

"Sanji is...?" Mihawk prompts and he wonders if Zoro is too tired for this work, but he's not Zoro's father and he won't tell his student how to run his work and his schedule. If Zoro needs to learn to balance his working time then that's a lesson that he has to learn on his own.

"Sanji is Zoro's boyfriend." Perona chirps from the door and Zoro glares weakly at her.

"Who was talking to you?" Zoro says to her irritably, his sweat and soot smeared brow wrinkling in displeasure and leaving stripes of colour and voids without it on his forehead.

"He's a cook then?" he concludes, looking at the blades. They're absolutely kitchen knives if the one that is by the grinding wheel is any indication.

"Chef. Not a cook." Zoro corrects him a little sharply. Mihawk isn't sure that he knows the difference but evidently it's an important point.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have-" Zoro starts to apologise, clearly realizing his tone.

"It's fine. Why are you making them?" He asks Zoro instead. Before now Zoro had been focused on his assignments or picking apart what he thought he should be studying. He has never gone off on his own quite like this before, it's interesting and is the first real delivery on the promise that Zoro showed when he took his student on. He wants to know what it is about these knives and what it is about his student's relationship that has made him change like this.

"That last knives that I made for him were... special. They were the best things that I'd ever made and they were just for him. He's in France in the best culinary school in the world, he's going to be even better than he already is and he had the knives that I made for him there with him." Zoro explains quietly and glances at the cooling knife in the ash, it's not cool enough yet so Zoro keeps talking.

"One of his classmates stole several of them." Zoro spits furiously.

"And he asked you for more?" Mihawk asks. If it's just a commission then that's a disappointing motivation for Zoro to improve so much.

"No. He didn't have to. It's not about making more anyway." Zoro answers with a shake of his head.

"The knives themselves as just blades can be replaced. I could make exact copies, I still have all of my notes and up to date measurements of his hands. But I can't replace what they meant, I gave them to him and it was... it was meaningful." Zoro says carefully and doesn't meet Mihawk's eyes. Interesting, but he doesn't care to speculate on that bit of information.

"I can't replace that. I need to make entirely new ones, knives with new meaning and... I don't know. Better. If I could find the asshole who stole them I'd cut him in half with one of my swords, the one with the dullest blade I could find, I'd make sure it'd really hurt. I can't do that though, I'm half a world away, but I can do this. I can do this for him, make something new that's better than anything else. I can show him how important this is with what I can make him, that can last longer than any words I could give him or simple replacements. I can do that and I'm damn well going to do it as best as I can." He declares with fire in his eyes, right there, that level of intensity and drive is what Zoro needs to learn to put into his work. Mihawk is impressed and for the first time Zoro reminds him of himself when he was younger.

"Hold on to that feeling, you're making progress. If you don't mind, I'd like to see these knives of yours before you send them off to your... to him." Mihawk says, hedging his way around the word boyfriend. It seems to childish and Zoro isn't a child, but partner seems too formal. Mihawk has never been good with people.

"Yeah, okay." Zoro nods tiredly and looks around. He hears Zoro make a noise of consideration as he looks at the knife still cooling in the ash and then around at the rest of his work.

"I should sleep, I want to make them all now when the I have it in my head but really these can cool when I'm sleeping. I can't make him what he deserves if I'm half dead." Zoro says reluctantly and Mihawk's mouth twitches in amusement. His student is learning. Zoro leaves the room with a deep yawn and stumbles off down the hallway.

"Oh so now he chooses to go to sleep, now that it's a stupid hour of the day. That selfish idiot." Perona huffs indignantly, her cheeks puffing out with irritation.

"Be quiet." He orders her, knowing full well that it will fall on deaf ears but he lives in hope that one of these days she might listen to him.